Chapter 69: A Moment of Warmth
Tamara's mouth twitched.
As utterly infuriating as the Virtue System usually was, she had to begrudgingly admit it had done her a massive favor this time.
She drew in a ragged breath. The murderous crimson glow bleeding into her irises rapidly receded, pooling back into a harmless, innocent black. The adrenaline crash hit her like a Bludger. Her vision swam, the edges of the dark forest blurring into a dizzying smear. Her knees buckled. She threw a hand out, her fingers scraping against the rough bark of a nearby pine tree just in time to stop herself from eating dirt.
"Tamara!"
Draco scrambled over the uneven roots and caught her by the shoulders.
Tear streaks still cut through the grime on his pale face, but the sheer terror in his eyes had been entirely replaced by a feverish, fanatical admiration.
"You... you drove it away!"
Draco was practically vibrating, his voice pitching up into an incoherent squeak. "Merlin's beard! What was that spell? That fire snake... it was brilliant! You saved me! You saved all of us!"
He gripped her arm with white-knuckled intensity, clinging to her as if she were a newly discovered deity.
To a Malfoy, a creature raised to worship absolute power, the sight of Tamara crushing that monstrous entity like a descending god was a fatal blow to his pride—and the birth of absolute devotion.
"Cough... cough..."
Tamara let out a weak, pathetic-sounding cough, allowing her exhausted frame to lean heavily against Draco's side. Internally, she wanted to hex his mouth shut. 'Shut up, you sniveling brat.'
"Don't be so noisy, Draco..." she murmured softly, playing the fragile heroine to perfection. "I'm tired."
"Sorry! I'll be quiet!" Draco snapped his mouth shut instantly, supporting her weight with a sudden, exaggerated reverence, as if he were holding a piece of spun glass. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
A few yards away, the blinding, white-hot agony in Harry's scar finally began to recede.
He gasped for air, struggling to push himself up from the damp earth. The clearing was a disaster zone. Scorched earth, snapped branches, and the lingering stench of dark magic painted a grim picture. And there, in the center of it all, was Tamara, leaning weakly against Malfoy.
Even through the haze of his searing headache, Harry had seen exactly what happened.
To protect them, Tamara had stood alone against that nightmarish cloaked figure, pushing her magic until she physically collapsed.
"Tamara..."
Harry stumbled forward, his chest tight with a suffocating knot of emotions.
Gratitude. Crushing guilt. Absolute awe.
"Thank you," he rasped, his voice rough. "If it wasn't for you..."
"Enough, Potter."
Tamara closed her eyes. She absolutely did not have the patience for Gryffindor platitudes right now.
"Stop talking about useless things."
But Harry didn't back down.
He stared at her pale face, noting the way her slender shoulders trembled slightly against Draco's robes—the obvious aftermath of severe magical exhaustion.
A fierce, unmatched wave of protectiveness surged in his chest.
"I'll help."
Without waiting for permission, Harry closed the distance, reached out, and clamped his hand firmly around Tamara's free arm, leaving no room for argument.
"Let go, Potter!"
Draco snarled, his upper lip curling into a vicious sneer. "I can manage perfectly fine alone! We don't need a hypocritical Scarhead like you pretending to care!"
"Shut up, Malfoy! Can't you see she can barely stand?"
Harry glared right back, his jaw set like stone. He refused to yield a single inch.
"She ended up like this to save us. It's my responsibility to get her back to the castle safely!"
"Oh, your responsibility?" Draco mocked, his voice dripping with venom. "If you felt so responsible, you should have stood up and fought, instead of lying on the ground whimpering like a kicked crup!"
"Weren't you just screaming and running away ten minutes ago?!"
The two boys leaned over Tamara, shouting over her head like a pair of rabid fighting cocks.
And Tamara, sandwiched directly in the crossfire: "..."
'I am going to murder them both. Slowly.'
She felt less like a savior and more like a kidnapped hostage—or worse, a shiny Quidditch trophy being tugged back and forth.
On her left, Draco's fine silk robes suffocated her with the scent of expensive, aristocratic cologne. On her right, Harry's rough, oversized sweater smelled strongly of damp earth, pine needles, and sweat.
Two entirely different body temperatures boxed her in, pinning her so firmly in place that she couldn't even shift her weight.
"...I say."
Tamara rasped, attempting to shove the two idiots away with whatever meager strength she had left.
"I'm not dead yet. I don't need two people carrying me like a funeral procession."
"Don't force yourself, Tamara."
Harry stubbornly tightened his grip on her arm. He looked down at the treacherous, root-choked ground, his green eyes dark with worry.
"The path through the forest is a nightmare in the dark. There are bogs everywhere, and... your hands are shaking."
He didn't offer it as a suggestion. His voice was stiff, leaving no room for argument:
"This path is pure mud. It'll be terrible if you fall. No matter how much you call me an idiot, I'm not letting go. Not until we reach the castle gates."
"He's right, Tamara."
Draco, despite looking as though he had just swallowed a lemon at the prospect of agreeing with Potter, nodded.
He pulled Tamara a fraction closer to his side, shooting Harry a look of pure disgust out of the corner of his eye.
"Although it physically sickens me to agree with this Scarhead, he has a point. As a Slytherin, I absolutely cannot stand by and watch you fall into such filthy muck."
And so, the two boys who loathed the very sight of each other reached a bizarre, unspoken truce.
One on the left, one on the right, they hoisted Tamara up and began marching her back through the trees.
They were lifting her so high her feet were practically dangling in the air, the tips of her shoes dragging uselessly against the moss.
Tamara stared blankly up at the dark, starry canopy of the Forbidden Forest. She could practically feel her dignity as the Dark Lord being ground into fine dust beneath the boots of two eleven-year-old brats.
'If this were the past,'she thought numbly,'anyone who dared manhandle me like this would have been sliced into ribbons and fed to Nagini.'
Unfortunately, her beautiful, lethal, and fiercely loyal serpent was currently a stupid, fat cat that only knew how to hiss at shadows.
They had only managed a few minutes of this humiliating procession when heavy, thudding footsteps shook the ground.
Hagrid burst through the thicket, his crossbow raised, followed closely by a panting Hermione and a pale-faced Ron.
"Are yeh all right?!"
When Hagrid saw the silver form of the unicorn lying dead in a pool of its own glowing blood, a raw, painful cry tore from the half-giant's throat, and thick tears immediately welled up in his beetle-black eyes.
But seeing the disheveled, battered state of the students, he forcibly choked back his grief.
"What happened here?!"
"It was a monster!" Draco cut in immediately, his chest puffing out with a distinct hint of boasting. "It tried to kill us! But Tamara drove it away!"
Hermione slapped both hands over her mouth, her eyes wide with horror as she took in Tamara's limp form strung between the two boys.
"You... you repelled the killer of the unicorn?"
Tamara didn't have the energy to speak. She merely offered a faint, exhausted nod.
"Tamara!"
With a tearful, piercing cry, a bushy-haired blur swept through the night wind. Hermione launched herself forward like a small, Gryffindor-colored cannonball.
Before her two self-appointed bodyguards could even blink, Hermione slammed directly into Tamara's chest.
Harry and Draco were caught completely off guard by the sudden, violent impact. They stumbled backward, their grips slipping from Tamara's arms.
Stripped of her support, Tamara's weak knees instantly buckled. She began to slide helplessly toward the muddy forest floor, bracing herself for the inevitable indignity of landing flat on her backside.
But Hermione didn't let her fall.
The little witch, who usually only exerted physical effort when carrying heavy stacks of library books, suddenly exploded with surprising strength. She locked her arms tightly around Tamara's waist, hauling her upward and keeping her firmly on her feet.
This was nothing like the hesitant, restrained hug from the troll incident. Hermione was clinging to her with a desperate, crushing force, her small frame trembling violently with lingering terror.
She buried her face deep into the crook of Tamara's neck, her voice muffled and thick with tears: "When Hagrid and I heard Malfoy scream, I thought... I thought something terrible had happened to you!"
Tamara went rigid. Every muscle in her body locked up. She could feel Hermione's bushy, untamable curls tickling her jaw, the fuzzy sensation making her skin crawl.
Worse, Hermione's body heat was seeping through her robes, carrying the distinct scent of parchment ink mixed with a faint, sweet floral soap.
Every dark instinct in Tamara's soul screamed at her to violently shove the girl away. But Hermione was holding on too tightly, clutching her like a drowning sailor clinging to a piece of driftwood in a storm.
"You're always like this..."
Hermione finally pulled back just enough to look up. Her brown eyes were red-rimmed and overflowing with tears, making her look exactly like a startled, pathetic little rabbit.
"Always rushing to the front... always disregarding your own safety to protect everyone else."
She sniffled loudly, wiping her nose with the back of her sleeve. Her gaze hardened into something incredibly determined, shining with absolute adoration. "First the mountain troll, and now this. You're the bravest person I've ever met, Tamara. You're even braver than a Gryffindor."
"..."
Tamara stared down into those wide, painfully sincere brown eyes and felt as though a jagged stone had lodged itself sideways in her throat.
'Brave? Disregarding my own safety?'
The Dark Lord was currently being showered with tearful praise by a Gryffindor mudblood. It was nauseating.
"...Let go."
Tamara turned her head away, her voice coming out dry and strained. The sheer, blunt intimacy of the contact was making her skin crawl; she instinctively wanted to bolt.
"You're getting snot and tears all over my robes."
"Oh! Sorry!"
Hermione gasped, finally realizing her total loss of composure. She hurriedly stepped back, furiously wiping at her wet cheeks in embarrassment. Yet, her fingers remained tightly curled into the fabric of Tamara's sleeve, stubbornly refusing to sever the connection entirely.
"But I was just so worried about you... what if you had been hurt?"
"There are no what ifs."
Tamara sharply pulled her arm back, smoothing out the wrinkled fabric of her sleeve with deliberate, icy precision. Her tone was cold, yet it carried an absolute, arrogant certainty.
"That pathetic thing couldn't hurt me."
She paused, her dark eyes dropping to Hermione's trembling hands. She let out a long, slow sigh.
"Besides, if even I fell, who was going to deal with that monster? Was I supposed to count on a bunch of crying children to save the day?"
It was meant as a cruel, dismissive taunt.
But to Hermione's ears, it sounded entirely different.
'If Tamara fell, who would protect them?'
Hermione's heart gave a violent jolt. A hot flush of deep shame burned across her cheeks.
She looked at the pale, exhausted girl standing before her—a girl exactly her own age—and remembered her own paralyzing, instinctive terror when they heard the scream.
A fierce, burning wave of unwillingness surged through her chest.
"I... I know I'm not good enough yet."
Hermione whispered, lowering her head. Her knuckles turned stark white from how tightly she was gripping her own robes. Her voice still carried a slight tremor, but underneath the fear was a core of stubborn, unyielding resolve.
"But I'll go back and memorize 'Defensive Magical Theory'cover to cover. And'The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection'..."
She snapped her head up. The panic in her brown eyes had completely vanished, replaced by a blazing fire fueled by her insatiable thirst for knowledge and her own battered pride.
"Next time... next time, I can at least cast a few Shield Charms for you. I can watch your back."
Tamara stared at Hermione's dead-serious, almost comically intense expression. The corner of her mouth twitched in a microscopic spasm of disbelief.
'Watch my back? You?'
"...Do as you please," Tamara muttered, deciding it was easier to just let the foolish girl dream.
A few paces away, Ron scratched his ginger head, looking between Harry, Draco, Hermione, and Tamara with utter bewilderment.
"Bloody hell," he whispered to no one in particular. "Since when did the four of them become so close?"
[Ding! Mission Complete: Pure Guardian.]
[You successfully repelled the main soul and protected your classmates (though the Unicorn still died).]
[Because you demonstrated extraordinary Courage and decisiveness in battle, particularly the act of standing up to protect your teammates.]
[Reward: Courage +10.]
[Current Courage: 27.]
[Congratulations to the host! Courage has broken the 20-point mark!]
[Unlocking Advanced Reward: Specific Spell Mastery — Expelliarmus.]
[System Note: Although this is a defensive spell, in the hands of a true master, it can decide the outcome of a duel. Harry Potter's future signature move is now yours.]
"...I already knew that one," Tamara hissed through gritted teeth, her dark eyes flashing with pure, unadulterated annoyance.
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